A Trip to the Underworld
by Kathryn Claire O'Connor
Summary: My very abridged version of what I'd like to see happen in season 5b. *four-shot*
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: A Man on the Brink**

"Why would you take that power back?" Belle screamed, the shock of it still running through her system. "It's a _curse_ , Rumple! It's called the Dark Curse for a reason! And after I _just_ came back to you!"

"Technically it was _before_ you came back to me," he pointed out. "And how much of a curse is it really if it makes me all-powerful and immortal? I keep Excalibur with me, and then there's no problem whatsoever with me taking on the curse again. I just become… well, practically a god."

Still raging, Belle reached out and slapped him before she could even catch herself. "You think you're a god at everything," she said in a voice choked by tears. "But you're not. What you _are_ is a man who's on the brink of losing everything he _says_ he holds dear. But I guess that's not true, is it? The gauntlet was right. The thing you love the most is your power, and that's never going to change."

Wheeling to leave the shop, Belle jerked away when he reached for her. "I love you more," he said sincerely. "I'm just trying to do what's right."

"You're trying to do what's right _by you_ ," Belle seethed, turning back towards him as she spoke.

"No. Belle," he implored. "I tried. I tried to be the good guy. But it didn't work. Maybe… Maybe there are no good guys. Maybe there are just human beings who find different ways for each of them to survive… and the curse is mine."

"No!" Belle yelled. "It isn't – it doesn't have to be. _We_ could be enough for each other, if you'd just believe that!"

"I do."

Belle shook her head, a solitary tear slipping out as she realized that she'd fallen for all of this, all over again. "No, you don't. Otherwise you wouldn't have taken the curse back."

"I need it," he said helplessly.

"No, you don't!" Belle repeated. "You need something… but it isn't that curse. I thought maybe it was me… but now I don't think it is. I'm not enough for you – not ever."

"You are! I _do_ need you, Belle."

"No, you've got to need at least something _more_ than me, if you're ever going to be the good man that I know you can be." She stared at him in silence for a beat before demanding, "What do you think that something else could be?"

Rumple stared back at her for a second before requesting softly, "You're forgiveness?"

Belle snorted softly. She really didn't believe that the request was a sincere one; he was just good at saying what people wanted to hear. Well, she wasn't going to be taken in by it again, not this time. "Fine," she said dryly, "If you need forgiveness, I'll give that to you. You're forgiven." But both of them could tell that she wasn't sure she meant the words.

But she wasn't sure she _didn't,_ either. Gods, but she hated this push and pull that was forever happening between them! All she had ever wanted for the two of them was to be able to be together, living a happy, quiet life… Instead they'd been thrown into a constant battle with villains and curses and demons that were both literal and internal.

"Belle, I'm going back to the underworld," Rumplestiltskin murmured suddenly.

Yeah... declarations like that were _exactly_ why the two of them couldn't have a normal life.

"What are you talking about?" she demanded tiredly, the fight draining out of her.

"I'm going to the underworld with the Charmings, Emma, Henry, Robin, Regina… They're on a mission to bring Hook back, and they want me to come too. I, uh…" He shook his head, looking at her pitifully, timidly, like he was finally starting to see just how wrong he'd been – again – but this time there was genuine fear in his eyes as well as he said, "I don't know if we're all going to survive this."

He was talking about physically surviving, she knew, but after the conversation they were having, she muttered under her breath, "After everything we've done, do we even deserve to survive?"

And she, for one, was talking about her and Rumple's relationship. She wanted to be with him more than anything in the world – and that was the hardest part. Because by all accounts he wanted his power more than her… and that hurt more than she could describe.

Instead of voicing any of that, though – it didn't seem to be worth rehashing one more time – she asked, "You're going to hell?"

He nodded, his smile wry and painful as he commented, half meaning it, "I thought you might like the idea of me going there right now."

Belle shook her head on a sigh. She didn't want them to have to go their separate ways on a bad note, and she knew already if he was headed for the literal underworld, Rumple wouldn't want her to go with them. So she gave up their fight for now, walking over to give him a hug as she said tiredly, "I _do_ love you, Rumple, and I _know_ that you can be more of a man without your power than you ever will be with it. Just… Stay alive and be ready to fight. War is coming… it is the underworld, after all."

"I will," Rumple said, returning her hug with palpable relief in his voice. "I'll come back to you, if you'll have me," he muttered while his head was still propped up on her shoulder.

"I'll have you if you'll put me before your power, Rumple," she replied, trying to make the harsh words sound as loving as she really meant them. "That's all I've ever asked for."

He pulled away nodding, but she could already see the defeat in his eyes in the moment before he left the shop. Once he was gone, Belle leaned against a display case and started to cry all over again. _Why couldn't he just be the man she knew he was capable of being?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: A Woman in Love**

"What in the world?" Snow asked eloquently as they stepped off of the boat that had brought them to the underworld.

"It's… Storybrooke," Henry intoned, sounding as surprised as all of them as he stepped onto the shore.

"Indeed," Rumplestiltskin agreed flatly.

"You could've mentioned that," Regina snapped at him. "Before we'd gotten ourselves wrapped up in visions of-"

"Of what?" Rumple demanded. "Rooms filled with flames and endless nothingness? No, dearie, that's a sleeping curse, not the underworld."

"I don't think this is regular old Storybrooke, anyway," Emma pointed out, literally pointing towards where the clock tower _should have_ been. Instead there was just a heap of rubble on the ground – and a trio of figures stalking towards the group on the shore.

"Who are they?" Robin demanded of Rumplestiltskin, drawing his bow and arrow to the ready.

"If I had my guess?" the Dark One piqued, "One is Cora, and another is Pan. The third is probably your beloved Hook. So let's get one, avoid the others, and _get out of here_."

"That's not Killian," Emma objected, peering at the figures. "No hook."

"Then who?" David asked, drawing his sword.

Snow drew her own bow and arrow, Regina's hand lit up with a ball of flame, and Emma's hands started to glow. Until the blonde woman froze, the magic flashing out as quickly as it had come. Before anyone could stop her, she was running towards the unidentified figure, flinging her arms around his neck as she gasped out a name.

"Neal!"

Rumplestiltskin's world froze – until Henry grabbed his hand and dragged him towards his parents. _Baelfire!_ He realized sluggishly that Emma was right. Baelfire – his boy – was here in the underworld! They'd found him! Or… he'd found them. Rumple couldn't care less about the particulars as he threw his own arms around his boy, ignoring Emma, Henry, Cora, and Pan alike.

Still, he broke the hug first though, stepping back to look at Bae's joyfully shocked face as his dead son breathed, "Papa? Henry? _Emma?_ You're all here!" Then his glee turned to a darker expression as he asked, "Why are you _all_ here? You're all dead too?"

"No," Emma shook her head quickly, saying, "We're… Rumplestiltskin just helped us cheat our way here. We're looking for-"

"It doesn't matter," Henry broke in hopefully.

Rumple squeezed the boy's shoulder in understanding even as Emma looked at her son a little sharply. "You're looking for Hook, aren't you?" Bae asked, his frown becoming a little sad as understanding dawned in his eyes.

Emma nodded, even though Rumple couldn't help but notice the way that her arms were twined even now around Bae's neck.

"Good luck finding anyone in this maze of a town," Cora all but snarled, speaking up suddenly. "This isn't the Storybrooke you know."

"You'd have more luck finding your beloved pirate in Neverland," Pan added with a dark happiness in his eyes.

"We will find him," Robin declared – the one least unaffected by the sudden reappearance of this trio of the deceased.

"Of course we will," David agreed, shaking himself out of it. "We'll split off into pairs and go looking for a couple of hours, then report back here to the boat to check on one another. Agreed?"

Rumplestiltskin looked around at the group and nodded when everyone else – even Bae, but not Cora and Pan – did. Henry was quick to grab his father's arm, still grinning broadly as he dragged him away. Snow and Charming went off together, as did Regina and Robin. Cora and Pan melted off to do gods knew what, and Rumplestiltskin was left behind with Emma, who was still staring in awe after Bae and Henry.

"Well, Miss Swan," he said cheerfully, "I guess that leaves you and me."

Emma snapped back to attention, looking at him as she replied lightly, "I guess it does."

He mused to himself, _She must be very in love with_ someone _still in order to not mind that at this point._ "Well," he said dryly, "Off we go to look for your precious Hook." And for a little while they did exactly that, both keeping an eye out for whatever dangers Cora and Pan had been talking about. Soon, though, Rumplestiltskin realized something. _If he could convince Emma to share her heart with_ Bae _, he could have his son back again._ So he calmly mused as a means to an end, "You know, Miss Swan, empirical evidence doesn't lie."

"What are you talking about?" she snorted, eyes still darting here and there as they walked.

"Your feelings," he replied simply. "I'm talking about your feelings."

"I have a _feeling_ I'm going to get tired of this conversation real quick."

"Hm," Rumple smirked. "It's likely."

"I thought you were one of those 'feelings make you weak' people, anyway."

"No," he objected. "That's you – and Cora, but she's of no importance at the moment. You see…You say having feelings makes me weak, but you're weak for hiding from them."

"I'm not hiding my feelings," Emma argued sharply. "I'm here to literally split my heart for my true love. Where in there am I hiding my feelings?!"

"You didn't see your face when you saw Bae. Everyone else did. You still love him, Miss Swan. Don't tell me you don't know it, and don't tell me that you're going to choose to resurrect a one-handed pirate over the father of your child. Even I wouldn't do that!"

"Given that he's your son, no, I bet you wouldn't," she bit out.

"I love Bae, yes," Rumple agreed readily, looking at her even as she steadily refused to meet his gaze. "But you love him too."

Emma didn't answer for a long time, but he got the feeling that she was thinking about it, so he left her alone in her silence until she said, "I already made the decision to come get Killian back." His mouth opened to voice another rebuttal, but she silenced him with a sudden glare before she added much more softly, "But I made this choice with my head and not my heart. I didn't even think about the possibility of finding Neal here, but now that I have… I don't know what to do. I _do_ love him still, but how can I keep Killian from surviving, after everything that we've been through together? He deserves that much from me, doesn't he?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three: A Plan in Execution**

"Maybe life should be about more than just surviving," Rumple suggested quietly. "Maybe it should be about living the life you want… with the person you want to live your life with. And maybe you ought to decide fairly quickly what that means for you."

Rumplestiltskin left it at that, once again letting her lapse back into her own thoughts… which left him to delve into his. _If he could get Bae back… maybe there was a way that he_ could _be capable of leaving the Dark Curse behind in this land. Wasn't Bae the only reason he'd taken it on to begin with, all those many, many years ago?_

So he and Emma walked silently through the façade of their familiar town, eventually deciding that they were going to have to report back to the others at the boat with nothing in hand. They'd had no luck finding Hook – hadn't actually seen anyone else, and Rumple counted that a small blessing as they came within sight of the boat.

Only to find a collection of people waiting there. The Charmings, Regina, Robin, Henry… along with Hook and numerous other dead men walking.

"Emma! Papa," Bae hissed, and both Emma and Rumple snapped down and around when they saw the way Bae was crouching out of sight behind a tree.

"What's going on?" Emma demanded, joining Bae in his hiding spot while Rumple crouched behind a nearby bush to hear their conversation.

"Hook. Your parents found him and told him your plan… but he turned on them. He," Bae looked at Emma apologetically. "He's messed up, Emma," he said regretfully. "Coming down here turned him completely back to being evil. Now he's decided to take all of your hearts, split them all in two, and give them out to some of his new and old friends who ended up here."

"Is he _crazy_?" Emma snapped, louder than she'd meant to, judging by the way her eyes widened just a little bit more than they already had. "That whole idea is crazy!"

"But he thinks he has the Dark Curse," Rumple realized aloud. "Even though he doesn't – these thoughts and actions are all him. But if he did have the curse, he would be capable of doing that."

"He isn't though, right?" Bae double-checked. "Because he has my son up there, and if-"

"He won't be able to hurt them, no," Rumple assured him.

 _Which also meant that he couldn't hurt the actual Dark One, either,_ Rumple thought, rising to his feet and stalking towards Hook despite Bae and Emma's whispered protests. They didn't want Hook to hear them, of course… but right this second, Rumple didn't care if Hook saw him. He swallowed his nerves with difficulty, hoping that this sudden, rash idea he had been thinking about would work. Because if it didn't… well, their stay to the underworld might become a little more permanent then they'd first hoped.

"My son's been telling me about your plans," Rumple stated calmly, stalking up to stand in front of a sneering Hook, who was at the front of the pack of people surrounding the very one's who'd come to rescue the apparently-undeserving pirate. "Tell me, if we released your people and," Rumple waved at the cronies surrounding Hook, "Theirs, what would have happened to mine?"

"Your people?" Hook repeated with a skeptical smirk as he gestured towards the heroes. "Do you mean _them_? _They're_ 'your people'?"

"Yes, of course." _Or at least he hoped they would be if they made it out of this alive._

"What happens to them is that they die and stay right here where they are in the underworld," an old familiar voice said, freezing Rumplestiltskin in his tracks.

"Milah," he murmured, watching the woman in question come up to wind her arms around Hook.

At the very sight of her his plans changed again. Seeing the sword she still wore around her waist – from the day he'd torn her heart out – he lunged for it, getting it in hand before she could stop him. Oh so predictably, she mimicked him, reaching for the sword that he had on _his_ person – Excalibur. In a single thrust, she plunged the blade into him out of sheer spite before Hook could even begin to stop her. And she paid dearly for it as the Dark Curse began to instantly wind its way through her body.

Hook screamed in rage, declaring as Rumple fell slowly to the ground, "For that, I'm going to kill you all!"

Rumple was only bleeding, but not dead, because it wasn't possible for something to die in the land of the dead – weren't you supposed to be dead already, after all? – and he only barely bit back against sharply informing Hook of his ineptitude. "You can't," he said simply, gasping through the pain of being stabbed, of having the Dark Curse transferred from his body.

Bae, however, didn't know that no one was going to die here, because he emerged from his and Emma's hiding spot, declaring, "Hook, don't! You don't want to kill these people – our friends. Their blood is on your hands. But only if you give into the idea of killing them, and you don't _really_ want to do that."

"Fine," Hook snarled, kicking at the sword – Milah's – that Rumple still held as he declared, "I'll just kill your father, then."

"No!" Bae cried.

"He knew what was going to happen to Milah!" Hook screamed back, glancing at the unconscious woman as he took Excalibur from her hands and pointed it at Rumple. "He did it on purpose, and now he dies for that." Narrowing his eyes at Rumplestiltskin, Hook growled, "Either you get up and fight this or you crawl away and die alone like a coward." The pirate smirked. "You _are_ a coward, after all."

Rumplestiltskin didn't think he was a coward anymore – Merida, at least, had recently taught him better than that – but he was powerless now, and wounded. This wasn't a fight he was likely to win, he knew. Still, no one stepped forward to help him – why would they, just as they were realizing how he'd double-crossed them so that he could obtain the Dark Curse again? – so he struggled onto his feet, clutching his side as he stumbled on his first step.


	4. Chapter 4

**I've been informed that the reviews on this story aren't showing up, and while I'm sorry, I'm afraid it's an issue for support, not me. I'm hoping it's just one of those bugs that goes away soon. Anyway - onto the last chapter! Enjoy!**

* * *

 **Chapter Four: The Lives They Wanted**

He couldn't really hold his side and the sword, and manage to stay upright, Rumplestiltskin saw, so he leaned against a tree, feeling pain from the wound shoot through his whole body as he took up as good a fighting stance as he could.

Hook laughed, and they both knew how pathetic Rumplestiltskin looked, standing there. _I can't die here_ , Rumple reminded himself sharply – and a good thing it was too, given how this looked. He wouldn't die here – but he still had to fight Hook.

So he did, but he was quickly weakening from blood loss, and was no real match for the pirate's fury. In only a matter of minutes, he hit his knees, facing the edge of Hook's sword and the very real imminence of a stab wound that just might be the death of him the moment they left this godforsaken underworld.

Hook wore an expression of unfettered, sickening glee as his blade sliced down through the air towards Rumplestiltskin – and hit another sword with an unexpected clang of metal against metal.

"Get out of the way, boy!" Hook snarled, shoving at the intruder upon his moment.

"Bae!" Rumplestiltskin gasped, realizing his son had interceded with the help of David's sword.

Baelfire glanced back at Rumplestiltskin for a split-second, gritting out, "I won't let you surrender."

" _Stop!_ " Emma suddenly screamed, emerging from where she had still been watching the proceedings. Her hands were already glowing, and as she came closer, she shot beams of light magic at Hook hard enough to throw him across the bank and onto his back.

"Swan!" Hook gasped, at the same time as Bae cried, "Watch out, Emma!"

Hook scrambled onto his feet, reaching Emma before anyone else could, and Rumple heard him say softly, "Thank the gods you're here! They wanted to abandon me here in favor of Rumplestiltskin's son! Your own family wanted to hurt your true love, Swan!" The pirate put a hand against Emma's back and tried to move her towards her family – funny how the others who'd been surrounding the heroes had gone elsewhere – as he ordered, "Tell them you won't let that happen, Emma."

Emma locked her jaw, eyes flashing as she let Hook guide her towards her family. Once she was by them, she whipped around towards Hook and declared icily, "Touch me again and I'll end you. In a non-criminal way." Her smirk was perfectly deadly as she asked, "After all, I hear you can't be _murdered_ down here – but I know plenty of ways to cause eternal pain."

"They were going to let me stay dead!" Hook cried.

"I saw everything you did, Killian!" Emma shouted, pain and rage lacing her voice as she declared, " _I'm_ going to let you stay dead too!"

"Then you came all the way to the underworld for nothing?" Hook asked incredulously.

"Of course not," Emma replied, suddenly oh-so-casual. "Neal," she turned towards Rumplestiltskin's son, declaring, "I won't let you die. Leaving you here would be like losing you all over again, and I don't want that. If you're willing to come back with us and put up with me again, I'm willing to share my heart with you."

There were tears in both Bae's and Emma's eyes – and most everyone else's – as Bae went to Emma and scooped her up into his arms, kissing her soundly. Just as Rumplestiltskin faded into unconsciousness, he heard Bae answer her with a heartfelt, "I'd love that."

* * *

Rumplestiltskin woke up, recognizing his surrounding by the familiar scent alone. He was back in his shop, and he could feel the cot underneath him while he lay on it. But there was a weight on the side of it, like someone was sitting on the edge of it.

He opened his eyes slowly, to find blue eyes staring back at him with the gentlest of smiles. "Hey there, hero," Belle whispered. "How are you feeling?"

Rumple mumbled nothing in particular, doing his best to sit up until Belle shook her head, pressing a hand to his shoulder to keep him still. "Not yet. No sudden movements. Dr. Whale's orders. You took a pretty nasty wound to the side."

He shrugged. "It was necessary to get exactly the life I wanted to live… with exactly the person I wanted to live it with."

Belle smiled at him again, leaning down to give him a sweet kiss as she replied, "I love you too. I always have, and I always will."

For a few long moments they simply clung to each other, both of them absorbing how many good things this meant for their relationship, and then Rumple asked suddenly, "Bae?"

"Came back with Emma," Belle informed him with an ever-widening smile. "They told me everything that happened. I'm proud of you all."

"I'm proud of you all, too," Bae declared from the doorway, stepping past the curtains with his hands in his pockets. He knocked his shoulder against that of the blonde at his side and declared, "Especially you."

"Why me?" Emma asked in surprise.

"Because you were willing to go after love – to believe in it so much that you were willing to give up everything that you thought you wanted to get it."

Emma hummed nothing in particular, looping her arm through Bae's as she declared, "I got something much better than I lost."

"I think you might've started a trend in that, for at least a couple of people," Rumplestiltskin spoke up with a grin. "You're a natural born revolutionary, Miss Swan."

"No," Emma shook her head. "I'm just one person who chose what was best for her and her family." She shrugged. "It just so happens that you apparently did the same thing. So I'm proud of us both for it."

"Me too," Belle whispered, so that only Rumplestiltskin could hear.

He squeezed the hand of his true love, pulling her down to him for another kiss and getting too caught up in his wife to notice when Emma and Bae shared a kiss as well.


End file.
